Google has delivered some bad news for computer users clinging to the ancient Internet Explorer 6. It's dropping official support for the browser. An estimated 20 percent of the market (largely business users) still use IE 6. (Source: Mouse Mates NI)

Google looks to lay a dinosaur of a browser to rest

Internet
Explorer 6 was a well-liked browser that helped expand Microsoft
browser market share to epic proportions (it has since slid
to about 60 percent following the international success of
Mozilla's Firefox).

However, perhaps it was a
little too good. Many companies and individual users liked it
so much that almost nine years later they still use the dinosaur of a
browser. And surprisingly some of the tech world's biggest
names -- including Adobe Software and Google – use the browser not
only for compatibility testing, but for daily browsing needs as
well.

The danger of using such badly outdated software was
brought into focus when Google and others were struck
by hackers exploiting a flaw in Internet Explorer. The
latest version of IE -- IE 8 -- was at substantially lower risk,
thanks to its memory protections.

Now Google has reportedly
released an internal memo saying that the company will no longer
use or
support Internet
Explorer 6. Writes Google:

We
plan to begin phasing out support of these older browsers on the
Google Docs suite and the Google Sites editor on March 1, 2010. After
that point, certain functionality within these applications may have
higher latency and may not work correctly in these older browsers.
Later in 2010, we will start to phase out support for these browsers
for Google Mail and Google Calendar.

Google Apps will continue
to support Internet Explorer 7.0 and above, Firefox 3.0 and above,
Google Chrome 4.0 and above, and Safari 3.0 and above.

Starting
this week, users on these older browsers will see a message in Google
Docs and the Google Sites editor explaining this change and asking
them to upgrade their browser. We will also alert you again closer to
March 1 to remind you of this change.

The
decision to drop IE 6 support both internally and publicly
is a rather bold move by Google. In January Net Applications
showed IE 6 to still be clinging to 20.06 percent market share --
almost as much as the newer IE 7. By abandoning support for 20
percent of users, Google is pressuring users to switch to newer
browsers -- something Microsoft has long been pleading
customers and IT admins to do, even if it hasn't tried
forcing their hands. Google also risks alienating customers,
though, who continue to cling to the ancient browser.

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